House 69 by FABRE/deMARIEN Architects

French firm FABRE/deMARIEN architect has designed the House 69 in the suburb of Bordeaux. Following is some description form the architect, “The site is situated in a residential suburb of Bordeaux composed typically of individual family homes each with their own surrounding gardens.The site, whose surface area is 186 m2, was obtained by the division of the former, larger existing property.

The urban planning laws allow for only 40% of this surface are to be constructed upon.Thus the house is compact, 8m by 9.4m by 6.2 m tall. To the rear of the plot lies a small wooded clearing. The house itself is bounded by its two gardens.It is a four-person family home.

At ground level sites the shared living areas and is largely open to the exterior by the means of 4 large square window bays, each measuring 2.5m by 2.5m, minimally detailed, without obvious lintels. When open, the partitioning window frames disappear into the thickness of the walls, eliminating the barrier between the interior and exterior. The living space is now projected into the garden and vice versa. This space is divided into 3 parts by a painted textured blockwork wall and by a utility and sanitary space.

At first floor level, the special organisation is more dense, 4 bedrooms and a bathroom all fed by a small corridor. The openings of these 5 rooms are grouped into 3 bays of 2.5m by 2.5m.The two façades facing the gardens are thus pierced by 7 identical squares.

The house is built from blockwork, the metalwork is of aluminium naturally anodised, the exterior is covered in a light grey render and the interior including the partition walls are insolated with mineral wool and lined with plasterboard.”